Musings

Mystery: 100 Days (41)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 41:

Today’s Project Work: A few more rows on the yellow piece of the shrug, and three pink hearts.

Today’s Poem:

Mystery
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

When did you first notice
that you could smell the corn pollen wafting
over the hill in the summer breeze?

When did you first feel the urge
to leap over streams and bolt
through the underbrush?

When did you first see the shadow
of antlers when the rising moon
flowed over your shoulders?

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Strength: 100 Days (40)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 40:

More rows on the yellow section of the bamboo shrug today, a Forest Fae card reminding me to keep going, and a thoughtful note of kind words from a friend.

Strength
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Lionwoman opens her jaws
claws catching savannah grasses
releases a yawn.

The force is Love
the choice to live
as though woman
and lion are one.

(With gratitude to Beth Owl’s Daughter for her reflections on the Strength card.)

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Hunger: 100 Days (39)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 39:

I took up my bamboo shrug project today. I haven’t worked on it for a long time, so I had to figure out the pattern of stitches again, and I made two rows before I realized that I had started at the wrong point in the pattern, so I unraveled back to my starting point and got it right the second time. I love the silky softness of this yarn.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Hunger
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

What are you really hungry for?
–Rob Brezsny

Today I have the hunger of the crow,
that is to say, ravenous for shiny,
starving for the artful view
of chimney tops and aerials,
roof ledges, and nests high
and twiggy in the sycamore,
near to where the eagles feed
their own insatiable young.

Today hunger resides not in my belly,
round as it is with the recent birth
of my cronehood, but is lodged
somewhere inside my indigo eye,
deeper dark even than my wings.
If I could, I would consume the world
with my shining eyes, filling my soul
with the map of my unquenchable yearning.

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Poppets: 100 Days (38)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 38: 

I made a few more hearts and flowers, and finished two more poppets tonight, so I have ten in a batch waiting for the next set when Radiance runs low. I won’t dress them all just yet. You can find my Little Protector Dolls at https://www.herbsfromthelabyrinth.com/shop/spiritual-tools-altar-items/magical-tools/little-protector-dolls/

April is when I get caught in project overlap, when the 100 Day Project continues, but here comes National Poetry Month, and I must write a poem a day! They may end up being short toss-offs mostly this year, but we’ll see. Rule Number One for me is that I am free to create garbage. Something good always comes out of the process.

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Legends: 100 Days (37)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 37: 

I worked on the Into the Woods quilt today. I finished Wolfy and did the witch’s hat. I’m trying to get the center pieces finished because it’s a lot easier for the kids to gather around the edges of the quilt to work during break.

Speaking of wolves:

Local lore says that in Rowena near the river is a cemetery where some of the descendents of Hans Graf are buried. If you go there on full moon night and climb over the wall (the only way in), you are likely to hear dogs barking and wolves howling, and to see the ghostly apparition of a wolf—a werewolf. Some say Hans Graf himself (one of the first Mennonite settlers in PA) or some of his descendents were bitten by a werewolf, turning into werewolves themselves on the full moon. I am a descendent of Hand Graf. . .

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Rest: 100 Days (36)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 36: 

It’s been a long and busy weekend, and I am proud that I managed to wrangle the squirrels in my brain enough to at least dance together a little, and I haven’t ended up in a stressed out puddle of overwhelm. I just kept juggling, steadily and mindfully. I made three poppets today.

Now I am tired, and I’m going to try to get to bed before ten, so I can start the week as well-rested as possible.

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Saving Democracy: 100 Days (35)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 35: 

Resting here after No Kings Day, I made two more little poppets. Approved by Sachs, director of quality control (for everything–he’s VERY judgy).

The Lancaster rally was wonderful! Liz Fulmer and Bumbada and Leo DiSanto and the Lancaster Justice Choir and Slap and The Infamous Unstoppables Drill Team and Drum Corps brought the energy. Great speeches, too.

No Kings in the United States! Build community. Love your neighbors. Create safe spaces. Protect each other.

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NO KING ANY TIME: 100 Days (34)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 34: 

Today’s Project was a couple more little dolls for the second set of ten.

I was going to make a new sign for tomorrow’s NO KINGS march:

TURN THE FILES INTO TRIALS

PROSECUTE THE PEDOPHILES

because I think it’s really important to keep calling for prosecutions. But I pulled out my signs from previous NO KINGS Marches, and decided to re-use the one from last time.

No King Any Time (A Side) and Nothing Is More American Than Rejecting Kings (B Side). I usually wear Weeping Liberty around my neck. George Washington was from NK1. I’ll carry my Wave Goodbye to the Patriarchy handkerchief.

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Back Into the Woods: 100 Days (33)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 33: On Which I Go Back Into the Woods

While we’re on the subject of fairy tales, I’ve gone back Into the Woods this evening, stitching a wolfy character hiding behind a tree. He was designed by one of our brilliant seniors to look like he’s slinking up the trunk. Creepy fellow, he.

Watch out for the wolves, the old wives said. And while the wild things in the forest were definitely a danger, we can guess that the old wives had other wolfish characters in mind.

How can we protect our daughters, our children, our sisters, from the wolves when the wolves escape consequence with such ease?

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Vasilisa the Brave: 100 Days (32)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 32: On Which I Tell You a Tale

In one of the old tales, the child Vasilisa is sent out into the woods by her wicked stepmother to ask for fire from Baba Yaga, the witch of the woods. Brave Vasilisa does not go alone, however: she is guided and aided by the tiny poppet she carries in her pocket, a doll made for her by her mother before she died. The doll carries her Mother’s Magic. When Vasilisa becomes overwrought at the impossible tasks that Baba Yaga (the Initiator in this story) sets for her, her poppet tells her, “Do not worry, Vasilisa, for the morning is wiser than the evening.”  In the end, the doll helps Vasilisa win her fire from Baba Yaga.

I make poppets, too, like Vasilisa’s mother, and sell them at Radiance. For #The100DayProject, I decided to make twenty, so I will have some on hand next time they need a new batch. My poppets are made of fabric scraps and embroidery floss and lots of love, filled with the energies and ideas I am pondering as I make them.

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